Apple unveils new iPod Nano and iPod Touch

The New iPod Nano

A new iPod Nano has been unveiled by Apple - the new one is the thinnest iPod Apple has made so far and one that has added curved glass over its screen, a new user interface and an accelerometer that puts the iPod into shuffle mode when it's shaken. The best of it all is that Apple has slashed the price too :)

With a newly added accelerometer, the iPod will now allow for a very cool and interesting functionality that was first unveiled with the launch of the famed Apple iPhone. How it works is : if you happen to lay the device on its side it will bring up the Cover Flow view, and shaking the device would shuffle the songs in the playlist automatically - now that's really cool.

The new iPod Nano will also be available in eight different colors: silver, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, pink, Red, and black. The new prices for the iPod Nano are: iPod Nano will retail for $149 for the 8 GB model and a cool $199 for the 16 GB model. Both are available immediately online. It'll be available in the coming week in a retail store near you.


The New iPod Touch

Apple also unveiled a new and much improved iPod touch it's got a new design adjustment. I for once feel that the iPod Touch seems to follow along the same lines as the iPhone 3G, although the Touch's back is made of stainless steel (the iPhone's is plastic as I had pointed out in my earlier article "31 Reasons Why you Shouldn't Buy an iPhone 3G!"). The rest of the features of the Touch have stayed the same, except for the addition of an accelerometer in the Touch too.

Similarly like in the Nano, the new Touch will feature the shake-to-shuffle function, as well as the Genius functionality. Apple has also added new integrated volume controls. A speaker has also been added, though at the press conference Jobs cautioned that the audio quality would only be suited for "casual listeners".

The new prices for the iPod Touch are: the 8 GB is priced at $229, the 16 GB at $299, and the 32 GB at $399.

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50 million FREE iTunes songs : Courtesy Starbucks Giveaways

Starbucks recently has announced a new plan to give away about 50 million songs Absolutely FREE from Apple iTunes library as part of a promotion to drum up interest in its wireless music service that will debut very soon.

The offer is valid from October 2nd only at Seattle and New York locations and in slated to be available in San Francisco later during November.

Here's how you can make use of this offer. When at Starbucks browse over to the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. Then you will be able to view and also download the currently playing song(at Starbucks) as well as the last ten played songs Absolutely Free.

Also, there is news that 1.5 million music cards will be given out each and every day in all of Starbuck's 10,000+ US stores from October 2 through November 7. Each Music Card will allow the customer to download a special "Song of the Day" at no cost from iTunes.

There is also information that the artists who will be featured will include :

• Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell (Hear Music artists),
• Dave Matthews
• Annie Lennox
• John Mayer.
  

Also, the first song that will feature as Song Of the Day will be "Joker Man" by Bob Dylan, and a new song will be given away each day.

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One Million Zunes Sold out already!!

Microsoft has recently announced that one million units of the Zune music player have been sold. That's really good news considering the tough competetion, a very early head-start and monopoly that the Apple iPod had in this market.

Microsoft Zune currently holds something like 10 percent of the hard drive based music player market, although overall its market share is around 3 percent. Nonetheless, I am sure Microsoft will be very happy with its progress.

There is some inside news from reliable sources within the Zune Product team that new Zune players will be introduced in the fall, including flash memory based Zunes. Flash memory Player market is important for Microsoft to enter because many consumers prefer flash devices. So if Microsoft wants to seriously increase its market share then entering the Flash based memory player market would be the easiest way.

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EMI to offer DRM-Free Music over iTunes

EMI will be launching DRM-free superior quality downloads across its entire digital repository from today. The new, higher quality DRM-free service will first be available at the iTunes Store. It is speculated that this decision was reached in response to consumer demand for high fidelity digital music for use on home music systems, mobile phones and digital music players.

The press release quotes as : "Our goal is to give consumers the best possible digital music experience. By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans. We believe that offering consumers the opportunity to buy higher quality tracks and listen to them on the device or platform of their choice will boost sales of digital music. Apple have been a true pioneer in digital music, and we are delighted that they share our vision of an interoperable market that provides consumers with greater choice, quality, convenience and value for money."

Meanwhile, Apple has announced that iTunes will make individual AAC format tracks available from EMI artists at twice the sound quality of existing downloads, with their DRM removed, at a price of $1.29. This will not replace the old songs, which will still be available as they were. Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price. Consumers who have already purchased standard tracks or albums with DRM will be able to upgrade their digital music for $0.30/€0.30/£0.20 per track. All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.

I guess selling digital music DRM-free is the right step forward for the music industry!! Hope EMI doesn't change it's mind given yesterday was April 1st.

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How to download DRM free MP3 files online for free?

Yes you did read the title correctly "How to download DRM free MP3 files online for free?"

You can download almost every other track in MP3 format which is free from any kind of DRM. So make haste before the service is pulled off!!

The site is called SIDELOAD . What Sideload does is that it basically searches the internet for free mp3 files that are for example used for promotions or available on the artists websites. Those mp3 files get indexed by Sideload and can then be found using the Sideload search. If you check the homepage of Sideload it already lists more than 300 mp3 files that you can instantly listen to. To listen to a track, click on the green > icon to play the song.

How to download the DRM free MP3 files for free:
Click on the title of the track and you will be taken to a detailed page which displays information about the source website that offered the mp3 and the option to download or email the mp3 file. There is NO need for any kind of registrations needed. Downloads begin immediately. The same page lists other mp3 files by the same artist or group which can also be downloaded from Sideload.

Sideload has partnered up with mp3tunes to offer its users a so called music locker which is a service to transfer the mp3 files you like to the mp3tunes online locker. It is a best option if you can’t download the mp3 files immediately from Sideload. Transfer the MP3s to your locker and download them later when you are able to download the mp3 files.

I just love this service :)

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How to remove DRM legally from WMV file collection you own?

After my previous post on "How to remove DRM legally from the iTunes collection you own? ", I decided its time to remove DRM from wmv files. Well, it's much simpler to remove DRM from WMV files. All you will need is Fair Use 4 WM - a freeware which can be downloaded from this link.

So, let's now look at how to proceed in removing drm from wmv files, so here are the simple steps.

• You will need to uninstall Windows Media Player 11(if its already installed). To do that go to the Start > Control Panel > add / remove programs. Remember to check the show updates box and remove any WMP11 updates as well.
• After the Uninstall of Windows Media Player 11 and Windows Media Player 11 Runtime and restart your system.
• Delete all the contents in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\ (if the folder exsists).
• Now download and install Windows Media Player 10 or Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2. Restart the system after the successful installation.
• Open up Internet Explorer and visit this media player website. You will need a genuine version of Windows XP, otherwise the update button will be grayed out. Your media player will be individualized during the process.
• Obtain new licenses from your media providers and start fair use 4 wm.
• Click on recover keys, next and add the wmf files that you want to remove the drm from.
• Select a directory where the drm free wmv files should be saved to and watch how fair use 4 wm removes the drm of the wmv files.

Cool right!!

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How to play Divx Movies on your Microsoft Zune Player?

Here's a very simple way to make your Microsoft Zune Player to play Divx Movies. When I said simple - I really mean it.

Using the following registry hack makes it possible to add and sync Divx movies to your Zune player successfully. Once this is done the Zune automatically converts them to the native format which makes it possible to view them just as any other video format that you have stored on your Zune player.

So, here's the trick. Copy/paste the following lines[in green below] into notepad, save the file with a .reg extension. (Eg. Zune.reg)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\Zune\Extensions\.avi]
“Extension.Handler”=”Microsoft.Zune.1.AVI”
“MediaType.Description”=”Video Clip”
“MediaType.Icon”=”C:\\Program Files\\Zune\\ZuneLoc.dll,-736″
“Extension.MIME”=”video/avi”
“AlreadyRegistered”=”no”
“Runtime”=dword:00000007
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“Permissions”=dword:0000000f
“UserApprovedOwning”=”no”
@=””

Double-click the newly created file(Zune.reg) and the information will be added to your registry. You will then need to restart your computer before you can drag and drop divx movies to your Zune player.

Another simple method would be to rename the divx files to .wmv and add them to your Zune player. Once they appear in the library you would rename them back to .avi and sync it afterwards which should automatically convert the file and make it playable in the Zune player.

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How to remove DRM legally from the iTunes collection you own?

Many of you might have found out that the music you legally purchase from iTunes works only on your iPod and iTunes Player. The same m4p files cannot be played on your regular mp3 players!!! Hence, I have a very simple and completely legal solution for you. Read on.....

The absence of a official linux version of iTunes giving all linux users no legal way of obtaining and playing back protected songs. QT Fair Use is a smart application that removes DRM from songs bought by iTunes leaving the tag of the user who bought it in the file. This makes it useless to try and spread the file on the internet afterwards because it would be to easy to find out which user purchased the songs and got the ball rolling in first place.

QT Fair Use can process all songs that are currently in the iTunes library at once making it an ideal tool for users that have a lot of songs that they bought from iTunes. A great feature is that the program works on Windows, Macintosh and most Linux distributions making it a highly flexible solution for most users.

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Microsoft Formally announces the Shipping dates for Zune

Microsoft has announced the official release date of Zune. Microsoft's portable media player will drop on November 14, 2006 and the US software giant estimates that it will retail for $249.99.

Additionally, Microsoft has announced that concomitantly with the Zune launching, the afferent digital media content online service will also debut on November 14.

“For $249.99, consumers will get an incredible entertainment experience right out of the box. 30GB digital media player will come equipped with wireless functionality for Zune-to-Zune sharing of music, pictures and home recordings; a bright, three-inch LCD video screen that works in portrait or landscape mode to view pictures and videos; and a built-in FM transmitter. The device will be available in three colors: black, brown and white.

A selection of preloaded content including songs, music videos and film shorts are installed on the device’s hard drive to help consumers discover new artists and entertainment,” stated Microsoft. Via the Zune Marketplace service, the possessors of $14.99 per month subscription will be permitted access into a music database containing millions of songs, as Microsoft promises.

But the Microsoft also provides an alternative purchasing system that enables users to acquire individual items for 79 points per track, through the Microsoft Points stored value system. “On Nov. 14 we’re delivering not only a device, but a shared, social experience that will be shaped by the collective imagination of consumers,” said Chris Stephenson, general manager of global marketing for Zune.

“We’re infusing the spirit of discovery and sharing into everything we do — from the experience we crafted around the device and service to pre-loading music and videos on every device to expose people to something new.”

The best part is that Zune will be preloaded with image, music, films and video content. Audio Tracks like: Band of Horses, “Wicked Gil,” Every Move a Picture, “Signs of Life” and The Thermals, “A Pillar of Salt,” Music Videos: 30 Seconds to Mars, “The Kill” and Serena-Maneesh, “Drain Cosmetics,” and short films such as: Radical Films: “Kranked — Progression” are a selection of the titles automatically delivered by Microsoft with each Zune device.

“We’re offering a compelling experience right out of the box and providing customers with a solid base to customize and personalize their entertainment,” Stephenson said. “This is just the beginning.” Microsoft will also make available a plethora of Zune accessories, either sold as bundles the Zune Home A/V Pack, the Zune Travel Pack and the Zune Car Pack or retailed individually with price tags ranging from $19.99 to $99.99.

My earlier blog on Zune is available here - It has some sneak peek videos on Zune : http://jsbi.blogspot.com/2006/09/zune-multimedia-player-from-microsoft.html

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